The Flower Boy!
by thuychan
Summary: Takaba Akihito, the florist and gardener extraordinaire, meets the multi-billionaire crime lord Asami Ryuuichi. Will love bloom between the unlikely pair?
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone! I have been on hiatus for a really long time, but hopefully those dark days will be behind us. To celebrate the blistering summer heat, I thought that I would start my fanfiction days with a whole new story. I know that people have been asking me to keep up with my old ones, and I absolutely will, but need to oil my rusty writing gears again with something new. So please enjoy and review because your comments keep me going!**

**Disclaimer: My Love-prize in Viewfinder is not mine.**

Chapter: 1

That summer was especially hot, and Akihito was having a real tough time keeping away all those street rats trying to pick apart his flowers. Since they were on vacation, those high-school and middle-school punks would ride by on their bicycles yelling and flailing their arms around, their niggling dirty fingers plucking his precious roses and prim carnations delicately sitting in porcelain vases outside of the store.

As soon as he heard them, he would dash outside carrying his broom and spray bottle, on guard in case one of those brats decided to steal anything he had on display outside. He had no idea why, but his small store seemed to always attract people that had no intention of buying any of his flowers. Rather, they all seemed to drop by to just dilly-dally. Those giggling high-school girls were cute, but they would only wander around the store touching all of the plants to the point of wilting them, smile evasively at him, maybe buy a small daisy, and then leave. The boys were worse. They would saunter up to the counter and make dirty suggestive comments or just act like little shits, probably break something, and then he would yell at them to scram before he called their parents. Then, there were the housewives. They were the nicest. They would drop by to either buy some flowers for their dinner table, even give him some food, giggle, and then leave. But before leaving, they would try to chat with him – a lot.

Business was doing pretty well ever since he opened up his flower shop several years ago. He was still in a bit of debt from the start-up, but Akihito had hope that things would be looking up from now on, especially since he was just commissioned to fill a large order for a wedding. He had immediately told his two best friends Takato and Kou right after he got the call this morning from the to-be Mrs. Tanaka-san. They were happy for him, and the two had declared that they would treat him right after he closed his store tonight for a round of late-night beers and ramen. Akihito was in a pretty good mood, and not even that annoying kid Shouta running off with a bunch of his lilies could deter it.

"Damn brats," Akihito grumbled, dusting the front of the store after Shouta and his gang of misfits zoomed on by.

The crowd was winding down for the day since the sun had set several hours ago, so Akihito was planning on calling it quits an hour earlier than the usual closing time after taking out the trash. Plus, he was excited to meet his friends. He was on his way to the back alley with two heavy-duty trash bags in either hand when he heard screams and yelling, coupled with some heavy glass-breaking and banging the next block over.

He was starting to feel a little nervous when the yelling and banging still carried on even after he had finished cleaning up the store, locked up, and was ready to head out for the night. The neighborhood wasn't dangerous by far, but there have been rumors that yakuzas are running the streets these days because the police have been undergoing some turmoil recently: something about failing to get some big-shot bad guy. Apparently the police have been trying to shush it all up, but they were failing horribly at stamping out the accusation that they were losing their power.

Akihito pulled the hoodie over his head and kept touch of his phone in his hands in case anything was to happen. He was already a few feet in the other direction on his way to the bus stop when he stopped in his tracks, thought about how stupid it was of him if he were to get involved, cursed, thought the better of it, and ran the opposite way toward all the noise. He had always been a nosy brat himself in his teenage years, not that those years were far behind him, and his curiosity got the better of him.

There were a bunch of street dogs barking nearby when he got to the scene and hid himself behind a trashcan that stunk a lot like rotten fish. He scanned the setting and saw poor old Mr. Hiroshima and his wife groveling on their knees in front of some man in a suit, their okonomiyaki shop in shambles.

The nearby area was deserted. Even though it wasn't past-midnight yet, no one was outside. They were probably too afraid to go near the source of the noise since gang wars and these sorts of things were happening too frequently in Tokyo recently. Akihito saw that even those homes whose lights were on a moment ago were now pitched black with the curtains drawn.

Mr. Hiroshima was mumbling something to the taller man, but Akihito was too far away to get a good look at that guy's face or to hear what they were saying. He was contemplating calling the police, clutching his phone tightly in his hand, when he saw an enormous hulk of a man back-handed Mr. Hiroshima and he laid limp on the ground.

Akihito stood up from behind the trash cans, ready to pummel those guys to the ground for what they did, but then saw the tall suited man pull something black out from his vest. Alarm bells went off in his head when he realized that the man was holding a gun. Even from far away, he could see that the scene was dangerous and not something that he could handle alone.

He shut his eyes tightly, opened them, and then made the decision to call the police once he was out of earshot.

However, as soon as he was trying to make his getaway from behind the trashcans, his phone vibrated and the song _Heartbreaker_ from the band Mimi's newest third album screeched into the night.

Aki stopped dead in his tracks.

Sweat he didn't even know he had rolled down his face and neck. He looked at his phone to see Takato's number flashing on the screen, then looked back at the earlier scene to see suited men running straight at him.

Having been in track and even making it to regionals in high-school, Akihito ran.

He ran for what seemed like hours, the blood thumping loudly in his ears as he navigated the twists and turns of the neighborhood, trying to lose the three suits chasing after him. They were surprisingly very fast despite their large frames. Thinking quick on his feet, he saw a pile of large cardboard boxes near one of the alleys and dived in. His body was small enough that he was able to squeeze inside one of the boxes and stack some more cardboard on top of himself. A few moments later, heavy footsteps were heard running pass. Akihito slowly let out the breath he didn't even know that he had been holding in. Despite the sweltering heat, Akihito didn't dare stick his head out of his hiding place until he had started dozing off. He couldn't be too sure if those yakuzas were still there or not.

After waiting for at least another half an hour, he cautiously wandered out of his hiding place and headed straight for the bus, not wanting to go back to the crime scene in case those thugs were still there. Checking his phone once he was safely on the bus, he decided to call Takato again to tell him about the incident near Mr. Hiroshima's shop.

He called the police next to report the crime, glad that he had done a good deed while having gotten away successfully. He hoped that Mr. Hiroshima and his wife were okay.

Meanwhile, in his high-rise luxury penthouse in Shinjuku, Asami Ryuuichi was sipping on his scotch. His voice was clipped as he talked to the subordinate on the other end of the phone. Hanging up, he twirled the cellphone keychain that the boy had dropped earlier between his fingers. He was playing with the little cat keychain in his hands, stroking the plastic cat's head gently as he directed his secretary.

"Kirishima."

"Yes, Asami-sama?"

"Let's give the little neko-chan a visit."


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for all of your encouraging comments and reviews, everyone! I have decided that I am going to try to update either this fanfiction or another one of my previous ones by writing a chapter at least once a week or every other week. Hopefully I won't lag on that! Hopefully writing fanfiction will help improve my writing abilities! Because I'm really bad at writing long chapters, dialogue, and my tenses suck a lot of…anyways, enjoy this chapter!**

**Since this fanfiction was literally written on a whim, if anyone had suggestions for future chapters, let me know!**

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Chapter: 2

The incident with Mr. Hiroshima in front of his okonomiyaki shop was still ingrained in Akihito's mind, so much so that he still spent the entire week afterwards looking over his shoulder. And once in a while, he would whip around eyeing to see if anyone was following behind him or trailing in the shadows. Of course the incident that he had witnessed with those yakuzas was not an everyday occurrence, but he shouldn't have had such a strong adverse reaction to it. It was by no means traumatic, but for some reason he couldn't help the prickling sensation on his back, like someone was watching him. To be honest, it was the itching feeling between his shoulder blades – the kind he got when someone was behind him – that was making him fidgety and feeling dodgy all week. Call it a keen sense or whatever, but it was driving him up the wall.

Akihito let out a long, exasperated sigh that morphed into a loud yawn as he stood out in front of his shop watering the hydrangeas. It was barely noon and he was already tired. He rubbed his eyes and silently cursed that his sleep had to be affected by all of this. Perhaps what made his paranoia grow worse was the fact that Mr. Hiroshima's shop closed down for "repairs" according to the notice paper taped on the front door of his business the day after the incident happened. He was never close to the man or his wife other than his occasional late-night dinners in their restaurant when he was too tired to cook at home after closing his flower shop. Therefore, he couldn't really pry into their lives, nor have a reason to, so decided to leave it alone.

The report he gave to the police somehow went nowhere. They yelled at him for playing with the police, claiming that when an officer came by the area after receiving Akihito's call, nothing was there and that the Hiroshima's were fine. The man over the phone had huffed at him, threatening to put Aki in jail if he were to try that prank one more time.

The phone from inside the shop rang, and so Akihito absentmindedly put down his watering can before dashing inside.

"Hello? Welcome to Aki's Garden!" he greeted.

"Hello, Mr. Takaba," a man's deep voice answered. For some reason, Akihito felt a shiver run up his back at the sound of it. He shuddered involuntarily and clutched the phone tighter in his hands.

"H…how can I help you, sir?"

A sensuous chuckle escaped from the earpiece, and Akihito swore that it felt as if the man's voice was actually right next to his ear. His ear burned and itched. Aki immediately yanked the phone away from his ear, looked at it to make sure that there was nothing else on the phone, and then hesitantly placed the phone over his ear again.

"—did you get all that?" the deep voice asked.

"I'm so sorry what?" Akihito stuttered.

The voice chuckled again and Akihito sucked in a breath.

"I was saying that I would like to a bouquet of flowers to be delivered to my place tonight if possible."

"I'm sorry, sir," Akihito declined. "Unfortunately, there are quite a number of orders today, so I'm afraid I can't deliver tonight." It was true. He didn't have an assistant since he couldn't afford to pay someone else to man the store, so all the orders to be delivered had to be done after the store closed, which was already sometime in the late evening. And he had a lot of orders racked up for the day.

"Hmm," the voice contemplated. "What if someone were to pay double? Surely you would be able to make the trip after all?"

Akihito thought about it, but decided that he didn't want to ride his bicycle around town delivering that late at night. He thought about the extra bit of money, but his mind drifted back to the incident last week and he shook that idea away. "I'm sorry, sir," Aki said. "I don't think that would be possible. I could deliver it tomorrow instead if you want."

The man over the phone sighed. "There is no problem about tomorrow, but because you keep declining, it makes me want to have them delivered today. I'll leave my number with you. Please contact me again regarding my order after you schedule tonight clears up."

Then the man hung up.

Akihito huffed. What a prick. _And what did he mean by my schedule clearing up?_ He looked down at the piece of paper that he had wrote the man's phone number on, and realized that he had never gotten a name. Or rather, the man never gave him the chance to ask for his name before he had rudely hung up.

Just then, the phone rang again.

His hand grabbed the phone like lightening. He almost yanked it from its cord, thinking it was the man that had just called earlier. "Aki's Garden! How may I help you?"

Except it was a woman's voice. "Hello? Hi, I had called earlier today about an order of lilies? I'm sorry to say this, but I would like to cancel the delivery tonight."

And just like that, within the span of the next hour after that overbearing man had called, Akihito had received five other phone calls from customers to whom he was to deliver orders tonight. They had all requested to cancel their order. Akihito didn't know what to make of it after he had ended the call with the couple that was supposed to be his last delivery of the day. The husband had wanted to surprise his wife with flowers on their wedding anniversary, but then he had called last minute to cancel, saying that he was willing to pay for the order if needed. It was just too weird to be a coincidence, he thought.

_Did that man have something to do with the canceled orders?_

The question echoed in his mind, but he pushed that absurd thought away. Guess he was just having crappy luck.

He decided to dial the number that the man had left behind. The man picked up on the first ring. There were no introductions. Instead, the arrogant prick started off the bat with, "Since you are calling me back, I assume that you are free for that delivery I requested tonight?"

"Yes, I am," Akihito conceded. "You had never mentioned what sort of bouquet you wanted."

"Ah. Well, what flowers would you recommend today?"

"What sort of occasion are the flowers for? I might be able to help you choose based on that. Or if the flowers are for someone, what are they like?"

The man on the phone was silent for a moment before replying. "Well, you could say that this is a first-meeting of sorts." There was no other information.

Okay. That was helpful.

"Alright, how about some tulips? I have some freshly cut ones from this afternoon. Although, it depends on how much you want. I'm afraid I only have enough for two dozen."

"I'll take the two dozen."

"And your name, sir?"

"Initials, please."

"Fine. What are your initials?"

"A.R."


	3. Chapter 3

**Greetings everyone! Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments! They meant a lot to me and kept me going. I apologize in advance for any grammatical mistakes. Hopefully from chapter 3 and onwards the real story is going to begin! If anyone has any suggestions for plot, please let me know.**

**As a side note to psyNEKOpath, the rating will definitely change to M soon in the future chapters because after all this is Asami we're dealing with here. And to Nbsiren whose comment made me laugh: someone's definitely going to have fun planting in someone else's garden. Wink wink.**

**Enjoy!**

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Chapter: 3

Asami snaps his cell phone shut after the cute little kitten has hung up on the other end, slightly chuckling to himself as he sheathes his phone back into his suit's breast pocket. The traces of a smile on the man's lips caused his secretary standing nearby a moment of hesitation before dropping a stack of documents to be signed. Although nothing seemed out of place that day at Sion Corporation, ever since Takaba Akihito had witnessed the scene with Asami-sama a week back, his boss had seemed a bit different. Of course to an outsider one could hardly tell any difference, but Kirishima had been with the man long enough that there were minute changes he found himself a little wary of.

His boss was a man that had always indulged himself in small little flings or fancies, but this was the first time Asami-sama hadn't sent a potential witness six feet underground. In fact, Kirishima was a little appalled if not bewildered by the fact that Asami-sama had planned for the young man to actually enter his penthouse, never mind that Takaba Akihito had escaped death.

While his boss was looking over the documents, Kirishima thought back to the scene that took place after he had presented Asami-sama with a portfolio of the kid's background.

His boss had been playing around with the boy's small neko-keychain in hand as he flipped through photos that a secret photographer hidden nearby the boy's workplace had taken.

The look on Asami-sama's face as he flipped through the photos could almost be described as serene. Kirishima had never seen that sort of look on his boss' face before, and it had needless to say creeped him a bit. He waved it away as one of Asami-sama's rather strange tastes until the man had ordered the capture of Takaba.

"Now, now, Kirishima," Asami had tutted when Kirishima suggested that he send a couple of men to retrieve the boy. "We don't want to scare him away," Asami smiled that eerie smile of his. Although by "we" he really meant "I".

The man took a gulp of his drink, set it aside, and then continued to flip through the photos again. "I want to find out whether Takaba Akihito knows anything about what he had witnessed that night," Asami said authoritatively. "And what better way to find out then to lure the boy in?" There was a smirk there. Asami-sama had taken to stretching his lips lately. "Why go through all the hassle of bringing him before me when I can make him come straight here?" Asami had smirked again.

When his boss suggested it days prior, Kirishima had no idea that by "coming here" his boss had literally meant the penthouse. Until the phone call several hours ago that is.

Kirishima scoffed – mentally of course, for Asami-sama might not take it too kindly – at the boy's stupidity. He must have bricks for brains if the boy couldn't realize that this was all a trap. Asami-sama had been more than obvious about it by giving him that hint about clearing the boy's delivery schedules and then gone through with it. Any normal sensible person would run away screaming. When Kirishima had asked his boss about the possibility that Takaba might try to call the police when he suspects the phone call, Asami had calmly lit a cigarette before saying, "He wouldn't try it. And if he were to try and contact the police, I'm sure that would easily be taken care of."

Sigh. More work for Kirishima.

"Besides, the boy had already called once. Not that that did any good, did it?" The smirk on his boss' face had Kirishima feeling a twinge of pity for the boy, who had no idea what kind of misery he was in for at Asami-sama's….pleasure.

The secretary checked his watch. Just two more hours now before the brat was scheduled to head over.

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A few hours later, Takaba Akihito was having a rather difficult time finding the location of the address that the man on the phone had given. He was over an hour late on the appointed delivery time, but he couldn't seem to make himself get on his bike and pedal over. When he had checked the map of the location, he was surprised to find that it was in some fancy gated neighborhood in Shinjuku.

It was that foreboding feeling again creeping down his spine that made him re-water the plants twice and clean his store top to bottom, anything really to stall the impending delivery. After the appointed hour had passed, Akihito had called the number that the man had left for him, but was met with the guy's voicemail.

Akihito wanted to ask the man if he really could deliver the flowers tomorrow, but after closing the shop and running out of ideas to stall for time, Akihito decided to suck it up and get the delivery over with. The sooner he was done, the faster he could get this niggling anxiety off his chest and head over to Takato's for a couple of beers to calm down.

The first thing he noticed when he was biking down the street toward the tall-rise luxury penthouses, where he supposed the man had lived, was the growing itch between his shoulder blades. He glanced around and noted that there was a black car that had been trailing him for a while now.

He shook his head at his own paranoia and rounded the corner. But the black car followed right on his tail. Alright, he was getting a little suspicious now.

Akihito sped down the street at full force at the intersection, right when the lights turned red, successfully losing the black vehicle and leaving it behind in the evening traffic.

When he finally reached the penthouse, the concierge at the front desk had eyed him curiously after politely giving him directions to the apartment, which apparently was on the top floor.

Akihito nervously rang the only set of doorbells on the sole door on the top floor. The itching between his shoulder blades intensified to the point of physical discomfort, so much so that Akihito was impatiently tapping his foot on the floor. His one hand not holding the two dozen tulips was furiously scratching at the itch on his back. After a couple of more impatient knocks when the doorbell didn't elicit a response, Akihito was about to leave when the turning of the lock was heard.

A voice was heard from the other side of the door. "Come in." The voice was muffled because of the door and so low Akihito almost thought he hadn't heard it, but it was definitely the voice of the man on the phone. It sounded deeper than Akihito remembered. Akihito grabbed the doorknob to open the door, and was met with the retreating figure of a man heading back inside.

He slowly toed off his shoes at the entrance, silently made his way through the hall, and stepped onto the extremely plush carpeting of the living room.

Akihito looked around the room for the owner of the voice he had just heard earlier, but couldn't find anyone around. He didn't want to pry further into the rooms since the place felt a little bit overwhelming and stifling despite how spacious it was. Aki couldn't be described as materialistic by far, but as he looked around the living room space, he had to admit as he stared in awe that the man who lived here had good taste.

It was something that he would have seen appear in a magazine for model homes for the rich, except the penthouse had none of the warm ambience. Rather, it was cold-feeling with dark hues, too sleek edges and polished lines, and drawn curtains.

Nearly forgetting his earlier trepidation, Akihito immediately put down the flowers in his hand on the nearby coffee table and dashed over to the curtained windows, stripping the heavy silk fabric away to reveal a floor to ceiling window that made up a an entire wall of the room.

He let out an awed sound, and like a kid he whooped out loud as he pressed his face and hands against the warm window glass.

The window had a stunningly perfect view of Tokyo tower and all of the vibrancy of bustling city beneath it. Since it was still the middle of summer, the sun was just in the midst of setting, and the apartment was now bathed in a warm burnt orange glow.

Akihito was so enraptured by the view that he had totally forgotten that he was in someone else's house, or that someone else was even in the room, when a large hand slid across his shoulder and firmly gripped it. A strong presence slid up behind him, the person's chest touching his back and their pant leg gently caressing his own jeans.

They were nearly touching all the way down except for the sliver of space for their clothes, and so startled at the sudden and intimate contact, Akihito nearly jumped except he couldn't for the firm hand on his shoulder held him in place.

He did, however, let out the most mouse-like little squeak.

His heart was thumping so loudly in his chest that he almost missed the soft chuckle near his ear.

Although Akihito wasn't standing face to face with the man, he could make out a faded reflection of him through the clear glass windows, and saw two heated golden orbs staring directly straight at him. And somehow, he knew that this was the man whom he had talked with on the phone.

The man gently turned him around with both hands on his shoulders and said, "Mr. Takaba, you have been quite rude."

However, there was a hint of mirth at the corner of his eyes. Aki gulped.

"Wha— "

His words were cut off with a soft yet deadly "Shhhh, Akihito. I don't recall giving you permission to speak."

A finger was on his lips and the small distance between their two bodies disappeared when the man decided to take that step and flush his body against Akihito's. The man's tall stature overshadowed Akihito's small frame, so much so that he had to lean down quite a bit when he placed his lips near Akihito's reddening ear, whispering softly, "Let's go over to the couch and sit down so we can discuss your disobedience, hmm? And punish you for being late today, of course."

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**Please review and comment! Hopefully the next chapter will be longer...and juicier hehe!**


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